With the support of ‘Mitrata Foundation’, Blind Rocks! ran a 5 months long virtual dance and fitness sessions with around 13 blind and visually impaired dancers. The participants taught the dance form, Hip Hop, which helped them physically as well as emotionally and mentally as it is a full form exercise.
We are grateful to Zappy Magar and Mr. Dilip Basnet from Royal Breakerz Crew, for their time and efforts as trainers. Also, our thank you to our volunteer resource, Sunita, and all our dancers who courageously chose to dance, defying society’s stereotypes.
A highlight of this program was the Virtual Fitness and Dance Workshop on July 14, which was facilitated by Natasha Martin, a percussive dance artist and educator from Greece & USA. Natasha promotes intercultural dialogue and inclusivity through performing arts, using movement to approach music. She holds an MA in dance anthropology and ethnochoreology, specializes in tap dancing, body music and is an enthusiastic learner of Bharata Natyam and Flamenco. She believes that body music is an alternative way to “seeing” music as an embodied practice. Over the past 3 years, she has been teaching body music in inclusive dance festivals, projects and productions where she has explored the art form with numerous blind and deaf students.
The session was a fun, new experience for our participants, who learnt to produce sounds and rhythms from different body part like hitting the thighs and chest with their hands and stomping their feet, which at end produced beautiful rhythms and formed an amazing dance.
We would also like to thank Mitrata Foundation for supporting us in setting up our Blind Rocks! virtual fitness club.